Over the next few weeks we will be running a programme of webinars covering updates to Digimap, Global and Society Collections and the Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland data, including how you can access these new services. A separate webinar to discuss and answer any questions on data licences will also be scheduled.

The first webinar will be on Thursday 16th May (13:00-13:45) where we will demonstrate all the recent and forthcoming changes. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions but places are limited so please register online if you wish to attend.

Don’t worry if you can’t make this webinar, it will be repeated on 23rd May and 30th May, details and registration links can be found on our Events page.

All Digimap users currently have free access to Global Digimap until 31st July 2019 as a trial. We hope you like this new service. If you would like to learn more about the OpenStreetMap data, it’s origins and history, from someone who is more than qualified to tell the story, Steve Chilton is giving a talk at #geomob in London on 19th June 2019 about this very subject.

EDINA were delighted to co-host an event with King’s College London exploring the benefits of Digimap. We were joined by a full complement of staff and students from both King’s College and other neighbouring universities at the impressive Bush House, and would like to offer our warmest thanks to staff at King’s College for making the arrangements.

We heard two fascinating talks from Dr Stuart Dunn (KCL) and Dr Stuart Brookes (UCL). Dr Dunn talked about the identification and mapping of corpse roads by combining different types of data from a variety of sources, including historical texts and map data from Digimap. These ancient pathways exist in several areas of the country but their location is shrouded in the mists of folklore.

Dr Brookes gave a fabulous insight into how our reading of historical landscapes can explain and inform the development of our country today and how maps and spatial data play a key part in this analysis. Not only can this analysis explain the past but can also begin to predict future developments. In particular he demonstrated how spatial data has assisted in demonstrating how ancient roads have impacted the growth of modern day transport networks and urban areas.

EDINA’s Director, Janet Roberts, gave a short talk about the value of Digimap and the use of data, highlighting particularly the importance of data skills to graduate employability and economic activity in both the short and medium term.

Both Dr Dunn and Dr Brookes have made use of a range of data from Digimap in their research and demonstrated the immense value that Digimap can bring to so many aspects of research and teaching. Having a wide range of data available in one place, with support available from EDINA, makes maps and map data easily accessible and usable for all staff and students from any discipline, novice and expert user alike.

This event was held in part to help broaden the use of Digimap at King’s College into more departments. There is a recognition that Digimap is a key resource at a high level at King’s College…

“An astonishing resource to have available which could be useful to all sorts of surprising research and teaching contexts across the faculty”

… so we were very happy to do what we could to help. If you would like to showcase your own use of Digimap and promote the use of maps and spatial data throughout your institution, please get in touch (edina@ed.ac.uk). We look forward to co-hosting other similar events elsewhere.

EDINA is very excited to be holding a joint event with King’s College, London on Thursday 22nd March 2018, exploring the benefits of Digimap . Watch this space for a write-up of the event. If you’re joining us, we’re looking forward to seeing you!

EDINA will be exhibiting at the Jisc Digifest 2018 conference on 6th and 7th March at the ICC in Birmingham. Come and talk to us about exciting developments with Digimap! We will have demonstrations of all the Digimap services and staff on hand to answer any questions. We will be at Pod 19 in the Exhibitor Zone and DigiLab area.

We are pleased to announce a new webinar series for Digimap over the coming months. These short sessions are free to attend and are available to any Digimap user, whether staff, student or researcher. You will need to register to attend each webinar. Bookings will open a couple of weeks before each webinar is scheduled. The majority of the webinars will be recorded and made available via our Digimap YouTube channel for those who were unable to attend.

This year’s GeoForum, held in the Geological Society of London on the 22nd of June, was a very successful event for all those who attended. Academics and support staff from subscribing institutions got to meet representatives from the Digimap team and experts from our data suppliers and the wider geospatial community.

In the morning session we heard from John Murray who explained some of the complexities involved in using Lidar data for extracting meaningful information to address real world scenarios. The Lidar data used by John is now available through the Digimap Lidar Collection, which is the latest collection to be added to the service. This collection makes data available from the Environment Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) easily downloadable through the easy to use Data Download application.

Following John was an informative and engaging presentation by Clare Rowland from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) who produce the Land-Cover Map datasets. Clare was heavily involved in the production of the latest version of the Land-Cover Map (LCM 2015) which is now available to view and print in Environment Roam and to download via Environment Download. Clare highlighted some interesting uses for the data including analysis of how land cover changes are affecting the numbers of bees.

The final presentation of the morning was a round up from EDINA’s Emma Diffley covering the achievements in the last 12 months and the plans for improvements to the service in the next 12 months. Of particular note were the introduction of two new collections: Aerial Digimap, launched in October 2016, and Lidar Digimap, launched in June 2017. The major work being undertaken by the team at the moment is a rewrite of all Roam clients to bring them up to date with the latest technology available, which will give them all a more modern look and feel whilst retaining all the existing functionality.

There was a great chance to network over lunch, when we also got to see William Smith’s pioneering Geological Map of Britain.

In the afternoon we held a feedback session where all the delegates had their chance to let us know how they feel Digimap is performing and what else they would like to see included in the service. This was then followed by a presentation and demonstration by EDINA’s Ian Holmes on how to use the Data from Digimap in various software packages to create 3D models. He showed us Ordnance Survey data GetMapping Aerial Imagery and some of the Environment Agency’s Lidar data in ArcGIS Pro, QGIS with the QGIS2Threejs plugin, and AutoDESK Infraworks.

The Presentations

John Murray: We have the Technology… We have the data… What next?

Clare Rowland: Land-Cover Map 2015

Emma Diffley: EDINA Report: GeoForum 2017

Ian Holmes: Creating 3D models in CAD and GIS using Digimap data

Feedback Session

GeoForum included a workshop involving all participants on how EDINA runs the Digimap Service. We asked participants what they would like us to add or improve in terms of the data, service and support we provide.

Data

The main theme that came out of this discussion was that there is a great demand for overseas data, both global datasets and national data for other countries. Datasets such as OpenStreetMap and some of the global satellite data are now part of our long-term investment plans for Digimap.

There were also calls for Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase data. We have enquired about this particular dataset with Ordnance Survey before and the sticking point is the joint intellectual property rights with third party organisations. We will keep up the pressure and do our best to make this data available.

Service

The common theme running through most of the service enhancement requests was to be more joined up. Improvements would come by making maps, tools and data more interoperable between collections, improving the ability to analyse all the data that individual users are licensed to use. Other features highlighted come more under the banner of personalisation, allowing users to customise their experience more, or to share maps they have created with other Digimap users.

Support

There was broad consensus that the support we provide for Digimap is excellent, with the content and the broad range of support channels proving very useful. There was most appetite for more webinars and video tutorials which we are committed to expanding in the coming academic year. We also had requests for more marketing materials and detailed usage figures for Site Reps so that they could better support and promote Digimap.

Closing Remarks

Finally EDINA’s new director Janet Roberts closed the day with a strong message about improving the Digimap service for the academic community and the importance of feedback sessions to help guide this process. Janet also reiterated the University of Edinburgh’s commitment to the Digimap service and making further developments beyond the core offering to better meet the sector’s needs.

We feel that the day was a complete success and we learned a lot from the delegates, particularly in the feedback session. With the great presentations we know that the delegates got something from the day too. We see the feedback session as good start in a process whereby we can engage as many users of Digimap to help us continually improve the service specifically for Higher Education.

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